ABSTRACT
The last of Chrétien’s five Arthurian romances is one of the most influential works of the Middle Ages, for it introduces the Grail into world literature. Perceval, or The Story of the Grail (composed during the 1180s) is also an enigmatic text, to a considerable extent because it is incomplete, but also because it interlaces Perceval’s adventures with those of Gauvain (Gawain). And most striking is the Grail itself, which Chrétien presents in only two, relatively brief, episodes. In the first, it is a mysterious, perhaps magical object; in the second, it is an explicitly religious object, though not yet the cup or chalice with a direct connection with the Last Supper or the Crucifixion. (It was a slightly later author, Robert de Boron, who forged that connection.)
